A Phone Call Out of the Blue
by misspatchesmom
Summary: A missed phone call from an unexpected source has Tony wondering what is going on. Tag to 'Into the Light' 17.02


A Phone Call Out of the Blue

_Tony DiNozzo notices a missed call from the last person he'd expect; tag to season 17 episode 2._

It had been a full day of non-stop activity. Tony and Tali spent the day at the Bronx Zoo. Tali loved the various animal habitats and environments, but her favorite had been the sea lions. She laughed at their crazy antics. Father and daughter enjoyed the rides and various exhibits as well as the food vendors located around the zoo. Tony figured Tali had eaten more junk food in a single day than he'd allowed her in the past two years.

On the ride back to their secure apartment, an exhausted Tali had fallen asleep against her Abba. He managed to get her to wake up just enough to ride the elevator to their floor and put on her pajamas to crawl into bed. It wasn't until after he had tucked her into the covers and made his way into his office area that he even thought to check his regular phone. The past few weeks had been more checking the secure line in his office than anything else. That was the call he really wanted to come through anyhow.

When he swiped the screen on the cell phone, the last number he expected to see on the list of missed calls was his former boss. The man who had all but ignored his daughter three and one half years ago when she was brought to NCIS by Orli Elbaz. The man for whom his future had yet again been put on hold. What the hell?

He checked for a message, but in typical Gibbs' style, there was no message. No explanation of the reason for a call from the man. Tony hesitated; should he call back or should he ignore the call? He sat at his desk and stared at the number on his missed call list. He re-checked the secure line for the call he was awaiting. Nothing.

He sighed; maybe he should have gone to help Ziva, but she had insisted that he stay with Tali; '_keep our baby safe_' she had implored him at their last contact. He replayed the entire conversation in his head for the umpteenth time.

_'I have finally found out who; now I must show myself to force a confrontation,' Ziva explained with tears in her eyes. 'She is after Gibbs as a means to get to me.'_

_'Let me help; let me be your back up,' he'd begged, nearly in tears himself._

_'No! I must do this alone. If you go with me, who will take care of Tali if something goes wrong? She cannot lose both parents!' Ziva had been adamant._

_As much as he'd wanted to argue with her, he'd understood her thinking. He always did when it came to Ziva. 'What do you need me to do?'_

_'Keep her safe; get her somewhere that you can be hidden in plain sight. New York? Or perhaps another large US city?'_

_And so he and Tali headed to New York, to the safety of the city that never sleeps; to the anonymity of being one of the many in the eight and one half million plus souls who populated the largest city in the United States._

As he was reminiscing, the thought occurred to him that things might have gone south with Sahar. '_Oh, god, no, please no!´_ That Gibbs had been the one designated to call him to let him know that a body was now identifiable. No one would really have known that he and Tim talked regularly or that he and Jimmy had a standing once a month gaming night. The friendships were outside of NCIS, no longer part of the 'family' that they had once upon a time made.

Tony picked up his phone; he swiped the screen and put his finger just over the call back button. He took a deep breath and made contact with the screen. He raised the phone to his ear to listen to the ringing as he waited for an answer from the other end. He got a recorded message, '_The number you have called has a voice mail that has not been set up.'_ Damn you, Gibbs! He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Breathe in, hold, two, three, four; breathe out slowly, two, three, four… He knew the drill all too well from calming his daughter and the times he had been with Ziva when she'd had a panic attack.

He was just about to try one more time to connect when the phone rang with an incoming call; speak of the devil. He did the breathing exercise one more time and swiped to answer the call.

"Gibbs?"

"Yah."

"So, why are you calling? Remember you called ME first," Tony tried to keep his voice calm and even.

"Just wanted to see how you and that little girl are doing."

Tony counted to himself, breathing in and out, before responding. "You call out of the blue after three and one half years just to see how we are doing? Oh, and that little girl has a name; her name is Tali."

"Yah."

As much as he wanted to chew the son of a bitch out, he kept his voice calm, not wanting to wake Tali by shouting angrily. "Yah, what? You all but ignored my daughter; you treated me like crap the last year or so that I worked for you, and now I'm supposed to believe that you actually care how we are doing? Where were you when I needed someone to understand how devastated I was that I'd lost the love of my life? When I had to process that I had a daughter who was nearly two years old? Huh?"

"I…" the voice on the other end faltered. "I made a mistake…"

"Damn right you made a mistake. And for my sake and for my daughter, unless you have something important to tell me, you can go to hell. I don't need…" he was cut off by the sound of the call disconnecting. Sadly, he was not the least bit surprised; typical Gibbs. He slammed his fist on the desk and was about to get up to walk away from the phones when the secure line rang. His heart leapt in his chest. Could it be? He reached over and lifted the handset from its cradle.

"Hello, sweetcheeks!"


End file.
